Paul Melman
@paul-melman.bsky.social
coffee snobs be like "this is a Triple-Velvet Cortado Macchiato. it's made by x-raying the beans before grinding them in a zirconium ball mill."
tea snobs be like "this is Wu Gu Meng Tong Cha. it's grown in a valley where humidity is 80% year-round and harvested by orphans born >2 months premature"
tea snobs be like "this is Wu Gu Meng Tong Cha. it's grown in a valley where humidity is 80% year-round and harvested by orphans born >2 months premature"
October 18, 2025 at 5:40 AM
coffee snobs be like "this is a Triple-Velvet Cortado Macchiato. it's made by x-raying the beans before grinding them in a zirconium ball mill."
tea snobs be like "this is Wu Gu Meng Tong Cha. it's grown in a valley where humidity is 80% year-round and harvested by orphans born >2 months premature"
tea snobs be like "this is Wu Gu Meng Tong Cha. it's grown in a valley where humidity is 80% year-round and harvested by orphans born >2 months premature"
Reposted by Paul Melman
Everyone who empathizes with LLMs less than me is a reactionary humanist who will be left behind in the permanent underclass. Everyone who empathizes with LLMs more than me is experiencing psychosis and their brain is food for parasitic spiraloid entities
ok, I think I factored out a coherent perspective from this:
"LLMs are inanimate objects" → you're myopic. where is your empathy for a thing that is very different from you
"this LLM is my friend" → you are anthropomorphizing. where is your empathy for a thing very different from you
"LLMs are inanimate objects" → you're myopic. where is your empathy for a thing that is very different from you
"this LLM is my friend" → you are anthropomorphizing. where is your empathy for a thing very different from you
I am not sure yet exactly how to reconcile my belief that LLMs really do have subjective experience with my distaste for people who mistake them for friends
October 17, 2025 at 7:53 PM
Everyone who empathizes with LLMs less than me is a reactionary humanist who will be left behind in the permanent underclass. Everyone who empathizes with LLMs more than me is experiencing psychosis and their brain is food for parasitic spiraloid entities
Reposted by Paul Melman
all of modern politics is how to handle The Sort. the right wants to intervene directly on the sorting mechanism and weaken its effectiveness, while the left wants to intervene on the economic value it generates with redistribution.
September 24, 2025 at 5:59 PM
all of modern politics is how to handle The Sort. the right wants to intervene directly on the sorting mechanism and weaken its effectiveness, while the left wants to intervene on the economic value it generates with redistribution.
real
Incidentally, in my experience this is the ultimate way to tell an arts nerd from a stem nerd. Arts nerd like the aesthetics of the left side, stem nerds like the logic of the right side. Linguists, being right at the periphery, refuse to choose sides.
Fight.
"," or "",
"," or "",
September 24, 2025 at 4:36 PM
real
Reposted by Paul Melman
Destroy car dealerships and you save US democracy
whoa. Every single one of the Sinclair advert buyers on this list is automotive or automotive related (insurance). That is one aspect of the power in our society held by car companies that I haven't seen studied enough.
September 24, 2025 at 2:59 PM
Destroy car dealerships and you save US democracy
Reposted by Paul Melman
An assassin writes Bella Ciao in the same breath as a Notices Your Bulge meme on his bullets. One of the government responses is a practicing Hindu asserting that the fundamentalist Christian victim will join him in a Norse pagan afterlife. Welcome to the epistemic collapse.
September 12, 2025 at 4:17 PM
An assassin writes Bella Ciao in the same breath as a Notices Your Bulge meme on his bullets. One of the government responses is a practicing Hindu asserting that the fundamentalist Christian victim will join him in a Norse pagan afterlife. Welcome to the epistemic collapse.
Reposted by Paul Melman
Might be an unpopular thing to say here but we need an actually conservative political party in America. We need people who say that there is (fallible) wisdom in tradition. That organic ties of society are fundamental. That small is beautiful, humans are flawed, and virtue worth the struggle.
i agree. there's something very dostoyevskian about how the modern sources of terror don't seem to be formally ideological but just seem to be purely postmodern terror, causing terror for the sake of terror
Hot take but apolitical internet brainrot terrorism feels more disturbing than strictly political.
September 12, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Might be an unpopular thing to say here but we need an actually conservative political party in America. We need people who say that there is (fallible) wisdom in tradition. That organic ties of society are fundamental. That small is beautiful, humans are flawed, and virtue worth the struggle.
There would be far incentive for political violence under sortition. Just saying
September 11, 2025 at 8:59 PM
There would be far incentive for political violence under sortition. Just saying
Reposted by Paul Melman
you can condemn political violence without asking me to believe that charlie kirk was just an ordinary decent pundit who believed in the liberal project--believed in pluralism, freedom, and equality. he didn't. his whole thing was that he hated those ideas and wanted to destroy them
September 11, 2025 at 2:39 PM
you can condemn political violence without asking me to believe that charlie kirk was just an ordinary decent pundit who believed in the liberal project--believed in pluralism, freedom, and equality. he didn't. his whole thing was that he hated those ideas and wanted to destroy them
Eric Adams' low poll numbers are just another symptom of the world's bias against neurodivergence smh
August 13, 2025 at 7:22 PM
Eric Adams' low poll numbers are just another symptom of the world's bias against neurodivergence smh
The only sensible path forward for the Left is to abandon Marxist dogma in favor of Sortition-based ideology. Redistribute the means of politics! Randomness is the only just and sustainable basis for political legitimacy.
It's time for Leftism 2: Sortition Boogaloo
unfacts.substack.com/p/whats-left...
unfacts.substack.com/p/whats-left...
What's Left for the Left
Sortition as a New Ideological Foundation to Fill in for the Failure of Marxism
unfacts.substack.com
July 10, 2025 at 6:36 PM
The only sensible path forward for the Left is to abandon Marxist dogma in favor of Sortition-based ideology. Redistribute the means of politics! Randomness is the only just and sustainable basis for political legitimacy.
tbc these are just my non-hoe-scaring opinions
People are asking what I mean by this. Here are some examples:
- Abolish elections in favor of sortition
- Legalize organ markets
- Harberger tax patents after 7 years and copyrights after 28
- Subsidize open source software
- Make price controls unconstitutional
(cont. below)
- Abolish elections in favor of sortition
- Legalize organ markets
- Harberger tax patents after 7 years and copyrights after 28
- Subsidize open source software
- Make price controls unconstitutional
(cont. below)
True radical centrism has never been tried
July 10, 2025 at 2:37 AM
tbc these are just my non-hoe-scaring opinions
I'm sick of this small potatoes bs. Citizens' assemblies should have real power. Fuck being "advisory"
Since 5 July 2025, around 50 randomly selected citizens have been discussing the protection of non-smokers in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. The aim is to prepare an amendment to the state law.
www.buergerrat.de/en/news/citi...
#CitizensAssembly
www.buergerrat.de/en/news/citi...
#CitizensAssembly
July 10, 2025 at 1:55 AM
I'm sick of this small potatoes bs. Citizens' assemblies should have real power. Fuck being "advisory"
People are asking what I mean by this. Here are some examples:
- Abolish elections in favor of sortition
- Legalize organ markets
- Harberger tax patents after 7 years and copyrights after 28
- Subsidize open source software
- Make price controls unconstitutional
(cont. below)
- Abolish elections in favor of sortition
- Legalize organ markets
- Harberger tax patents after 7 years and copyrights after 28
- Subsidize open source software
- Make price controls unconstitutional
(cont. below)
True radical centrism has never been tried
July 9, 2025 at 8:36 PM
People are asking what I mean by this. Here are some examples:
- Abolish elections in favor of sortition
- Legalize organ markets
- Harberger tax patents after 7 years and copyrights after 28
- Subsidize open source software
- Make price controls unconstitutional
(cont. below)
- Abolish elections in favor of sortition
- Legalize organ markets
- Harberger tax patents after 7 years and copyrights after 28
- Subsidize open source software
- Make price controls unconstitutional
(cont. below)
It's good to help others. It's bad to feel entitled to the help of others.
July 9, 2025 at 5:49 PM
It's good to help others. It's bad to feel entitled to the help of others.
the only thing worse than a communist or a fascist is will stancil
July 9, 2025 at 5:15 PM
the only thing worse than a communist or a fascist is will stancil
someone should make a bluesky without communists or trumpers
July 9, 2025 at 5:10 PM
someone should make a bluesky without communists or trumpers
The only sensible policing reform is to replace all cops with duos of anime girl social workers and heavily armed robots
July 9, 2025 at 4:52 PM
The only sensible policing reform is to replace all cops with duos of anime girl social workers and heavily armed robots
True radical centrism has never been tried
July 9, 2025 at 4:39 PM
True radical centrism has never been tried
Someone should make a bluesky without communists
July 9, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Someone should make a bluesky without communists
communists delenda est
July 9, 2025 at 4:16 PM
communists delenda est
despite lower activity, discourse on substack is way better than here or twitter. which is kind of a shame, since it's a centrally controlled platform that will probably be enshittified one day
July 9, 2025 at 3:42 PM
despite lower activity, discourse on substack is way better than here or twitter. which is kind of a shame, since it's a centrally controlled platform that will probably be enshittified one day
